NEW YORK - Netflix said Wednesday that its subscribers watched more than 2 billion hours of streaming TV shows and movies in the fourth quarter.

CEO Reed Hastings had previously told a UBS investor conference that the company would hit "well over 1 billion hours of streaming" in the fourth quarter.
"Streaming has been a rocket ship for us," he said at the conference in early December. "The amount of streaming is just going through the roof."

"With more U.S. members watching instantly, and aided by global expansion, Netflix streaming hours grew dramatically in 2011," the firm also said on Wednesday without providing full-year figures.

According to a Deloitte study, 14 percent of Americans now say that their favorite way to watch a movie at home is to stream it over the Internet via a subscription service - up from just 4 percent two years earlier.

"We were thrilled to deliver more than two billion hours of TV shows and movies across 45 countries in the fourth quarter," said Hastings.

And Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said: "The more great TV shows and movies Netflix adds, the more people watch."

He added: "In the coming months, Netflix members can enjoy complete seasons of great TV series from all the major networks and most branded cable channels as well as fantastic films like Drive, Hugo, Captain America and Margin Call."